Lady Gaga has been mocked on social media for denying that her new film Joker: Folie à Deux is a musical.
The film is the sequel to 2019’s Joker, once again directed by The Hangover’s Todd Phillips. Joaquin Phoenix reprises his lead role as Arthur Fleck/Joker, while Lady Gaga joins the cast as love interest Harleen “Lee” Quinzel. Phillips and Gaga revealed ahead of the film’s release that the film has a significant musical element.
Phoenix and Gaga will perform song-and-dance routines while singing classic tunes like “Get Happy,” “For Once in My Life” and “That’s Life”. Earlier this year, Gaga promised “There’s music, there’s dance, it’s a drama,” earlier this year.
But Gaga has now denied the film is a musical.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is actually a musical in a lot of ways. It’s very different,” she told an audience at the Venice Film Festival, according to Variety.
“The way that music is used is to really give the characters a way to express what they needed to say because saying it is not enough.”
Social media responded with ridicule, as they wrote, “Girl that is quite LITERALLY a musical, what is going on?”
Another added, “I love how everyone attached to this film keeps saying it’s not a musical and then immediately giving a textbook definition of a musical to explain how it’s not a musical.”
A third commented, “I need to see this movie so I can know what the hell they mean because using music/singing when speaking is not enough is literally one of the core tenants of what a musical is.”
Some speculated that the decision to distance the movie from being described as a musical is intended to keep male audiences happy.
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“If they’re going to be this reluctant to just call it a musical for fear of alienating dude bros then why make it a musical in the first place,” hit out another.
“She’s being made to say it so all the young straight men still go see the movie,” speculated another.
Earlier this year Phillips also denied the movie was a musical as he said: “Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It’s just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.”
He continued, “I just don’t want people to think that it’s like In the Heights, where the lady in the bodega starts to sing and they take it out onto the street, and the police are dancing,” he continued. “No disrespect, because I loved In the Heights.”
The 2019 film Joker tracked the mental decline of aspiring comedian and clown Arthur Fleck. His violent Joker persona emerges as a result of his social and romantic rejection, and he goes on to become a cult anti-hero.
Phoenix won an Oscar for his performance, and the film made more than $1bn at the box office, becoming at the time the most profitable R-rated movie of all time. That record has since been broken by this year’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
The sequel will arrive in cinemas on October 4, 2024, the fifth anniversary of the original film’s release.